Barely a month ago, on the 10th of April to be precise, the cabinet secretary of the Government of India wrote a letter to all the members of the Union Council of Ministers, letting them know that the prime minister would like them not to go beyond their brief in interacting with the media. The letter was quite categorical. The cabinet secretary conveyed “the decision of prime minister that in respect of issues considered to be sensitive by him, one ministry/department will be designated as the nodal ministry/department as a single point for interaction with the media and accurate articulation of the actions taken/being contemplated by government as well as the stance adopted by government” (underlined in the original). How much more explicit can a prime ministerial directive get? Even if the cabinet secretary and the Prime Minister’s Office had not got around to finishing the process of designating “nodal ministries/departments” that could be the “single point for interaction with media” on issues like India’s policy on foreign direct investment (FDI) in telecommunications and power sectors, or, in general, on India’s policy on Chinese investments in India, it would require a considerable stretching of one’s imagination to think that a minister for environment and forests would be the appropriate node or single point! One can pardon a minister in the external affairs ministry, even a compulsive media attention-grabber like Shashi Tharoor, speaking on China. One can even pardon a minister for telecommunications, even someone who unabashedly promotes corporate interests, like A Raja, speaking on FDI in telecom. But whatever took hold of our minister for climate change and tigers that he should roar so eloquently about the climate for Chinese investment in India?
Not only has Jairam Ramesh, the union minister for environment and forests, spoken out of turn but he has also flouted a prime ministerial directive and embarrassed India. Having just sacked Mr Tharoor for his indiscretions, the prime minister may not have the heart, the stomach and the energy to sack yet another minister. But his telephonic reprimand was the least he could do. Pity a prime minister who finds his best and brightest commit such unacceptable faux pas. In a talent-deficient ministry, Mr Tharoor and Mr Ramesh are among the few who have what it takes to be an efficient and competent member of the Union Council of Ministers. Both have proved their mettle in their time in office. If the prime minister were reconstituting his Council of Ministers, neither would have been on his first list of dismissals on the grounds of incompetence, even if there are other good reasons for putting them out to pasture, as was the case with Mr Tharoor. It is perhaps a realisation of their relative worth that must make them so over-confident and arrogant that they have become political loose cannons and media’s delight. Ministers like them should learn from the example of the prime minister himself, and other senior ministers like Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram, whose quiet competence, not flashy hubris nor arrogant self-importance, has stood the government and the nation in good stead.